Why The Prussian Example of Education Became Popular

Because It Was Seen As A Control Mechanism For the Masses...

Have you ever noticed that whenever someone questions the value of the government-run school system; they will almost certainly be accused of opposing education itself? This is one reason why each legislative session, state legislators find themselves under tremendous pressure to properly fund and cater to the public education system. In most counties, as in Boone County , Arkansas, probably the largest employers are those involved in the school system. This translates into political power and those in power typically don’t appreciate being questioned.

Clearly, most people consider the public/government “education” system to be a golden calf of sorts. But almost no one has the slightest idea of the origins, the history, or the goals of public education in the US. Very few of our fellow Americans realize that our government-controlled “education” system was founded upon authoritarian beliefs and ambitions.

Government run schools find their beginning in the Prussian schools of the early 19^th Century. In the 1840s, Horace Mann, who was the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, went to Europe to study the Prussian model of government education. He was seeking a way to change what he deemed the “unruly” (meaning independent) children into disciplined citizens.

Or as George Carlin so eloquently explained…

There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed.

I'll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. that's against their interests.

…that's right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it…

To that end, the Prussian educational system sought to take education out of the hands of family and church with these five key goals in mind. It was to create:

1. Obedient workers for the mines and factories.

2. Obedient soldiers for the military.

3. Well-subordinated civil servants to work for the government.

4. Well-subordinated clerks for industry.

5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues.

The reasoning behind such a system is easy to understand, since independently educated citizens could not be always counted on to submit to their government’s wishes. Tyrants like Prussia’s Frederick William I and France’s Napoleon each used this system to build a powerful, controlling state apparatus. Other tyrants followed in their footsteps. Mao of China, Lenin and Stalin of Russia as well as Hitler of Germany.

Educator John Taylor Gatto’s book, “The Underground History of American Education,” describes how the system came to America:

“A small number of passionate ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the 19^th Century, fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its educational system and campaigned relentlessly thereafter to bring the Prussian vision to our shores. To do that, children would have to be removed from their parents and inappropriate cultural influences.”

The next step was to sell the new system to the American public in the name of equality by convincing each respective state to adopt a compulsory government school system to ensure a uniform education for the masses. The primary goals of this system were not intellectual training but rather conditioning the students for obedience, subordination and collective life.

I suspect that Horace Mann and others of his ilk were also looking closely at some of the writings of Karl Marx, who himself was Prussian. And with this bit of historical perspective regarding the origins and stated intentions of public education, it’s much easier to understand why a “free education for all children in public schools” is the 10th plank of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Paid for by the 1st Plank. Nothing is “free”. Somehow, some way you pay for it. Realize that your children’s future is at stake. And they will be paying with the loss of their individuality and the ability to critically think.

I saw right through the charade when I was in government school back in the 1960-1970’s which is the main reason I REFUSED to let my four sons attend. They may have lost out in some minor area like sports, but for all intents, they were saved from the incessant rule by “teachers” that I remember being subjected to during my school years. We also kept them from having to deal with bullies and peer pressure. So we gave up my wife’s salary as an RN for over 20 years to homeschool them. We figured at a loss of about $1,000,000 in salary. And even to this day, we are forced under the threat of violence to pay for the modern “education” system that was set up to enslave all of us.

To this day, the defenders of government controlled education insist that it was implemented due to the request from the American people. But this was not necessarily the case.

Sheldon Richman, of the Future of Freedom Foundation, explains it this way:

”Many of us grow up believing that government reflects the will of the people. But skeptics know better. Government has assumed more and more control over private life not because the people demanded it, but because power-seekers and privilege-seekers sought outlets for their ambitions. They then propagandized the public until a sufficient number of people came to believe government control was good for them.”

As writer Karen DeCoster points out,

“What is most disquieting about the public education mindset is that those who believe most strongly in it are convinced that there are “no other” noble alternatives, and that the alternatives that do exist are merely a hindrance to the only real education, that which is provided via the public domain.”

So we really have to ask ourselves. Is the government school system truly filled with hard-working, ethical, and highly inspiring educators who change lives for the better? Or are most of these “educators” simply mindless robots indoctrinated themselves into the same kind of thinking that started this system in the first place. After all, garbage in garbage out. That was my experience. They didn’t teach, they indoctrinated. How many of you can think back on your government school classes and claim that what you were “taught” has been actually useful in your real every day lives? Almost anything that you need for life is ignored. Reason, logic, common sense, what are those? Having the ability to critically think isn’t allowed. I was stifled many times from asking questions during class because I was considered a disrupter. Today they would prescribe some SSRI med for someone like me that can really mess you up!

And the fact is…No people can remain free without being truly educated, but that’s not the same thing as having mere uniformity of thought. Individuality vs collectivism. Being that individual that questions is not allowed in a society run by control freaks. Am I right?

I am reminded of this dialogue that took place in a movie I saw once with Toby McGuire called “Ride With the Devil” released in 1999.Directed by Ang Lee. Someone who did his homework and had no bones to pick.

Mr. Evans: Have you ever been to Lawrence, Kansas, young man?

Chiles: No, I reckon not, Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence.

Mr. Evans: I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those Northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown. The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion. I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble-makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country.

Chiles: Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either.

Mr. Evans: No, it won't, Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely... that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse... because they fancied that everyone should think... and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do... with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another... how they live. We just worry about ourselves.

Chiles: Are you sayin', sir, that we fight for nothin'?

Mr. Evans: Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had. As did my son.

So do yourself a favor and your children a favor. AVOID government school education like the life of your country depended on it. Because it does. Homeschool isn’t that hard. There are many curriculums available for homeschoolers and most everywhere has homeschool groups that can meet so the children can interact with each other. And the financial sacrifice you make will be worth the minds you save. YOUR children’s. Because a MIND is a TERRIBLE thing to WASTE!

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